Patrice Riemens on Sat, 30 Mar 2013 04:13:59 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> Aakash/OLPC critics and their discontents |
Since I posted Akshat Rathi's op-ed piece in The Hindu on (against) Aakash tablet and, by extention, the OLPC project, I think it's fair to post also the rejoinders that have come on the Bytes4All list (with possibly more to come up, but interested readers may from now on follow it directly on the Bytes4All list archive: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/ Cheers, p+4D! Edward Cherlin: Arrant nonsense. I have refuted the absurd claims made about the Peru study many times. Enemies of OLPC, of Free Software, and of the poor and oppressed simply ignore the gains made in cognitive and computer skills by children in Peru. The remedy for not integrating computers with the curriculum is not technology bashing, but getting on with integration. I like to ask, Do you think that it is better to curse the darkness or to teach children to make candles? I am writing some of the books on candle-making, and recruiting others to do so, in the Sugar Labs program for Replacing Textbooks, and at FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) Manuals. We need schools of education to take on full-scale R&D on how to use interactive digital textbook technology under Creative Commons licensing to teach every school subject, and whatever else the children need to be able to get and create jobs and build civil society. Computers now cost less than printed textbooks in all but the poorest countries, the ones with the most inadequate textbooks. To the shame of India, Bangladesh is now out ahead both on digitizing its textbooks and on doing the work to design, build, and integrate into its schools its national Doel computer. And furthermore, shame, utter shame on this so-called advocate for Free Software who does not want poor children to have access to it. Satish Jha: A truant chid on the street shouted against Mahatma Gandhi! Those who have no contribution that is recognized by the people at the frontiers of knowledge, either in technology or pedagogy, can shout what they feel a gushed about with limited understanding of connecting the dots. But what will be that worth? The journalist who wrote in Hindu is like someone living in the plain old telephone era commenting on telecommunication in the times of smartphones and phablets. He will be puzzled, if not baffled. The Hindu article writer did not showed little capability of connecting the dots. Using third sources not knowing to read them can get one published in equally intellectually challenged environments. That does nt change the fact that the guy has little understand or experience of Olpc as an approach. Ask those who benefit from it. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org